


What my Brother calls me

by Farstrider



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Brotherly Love, Gen, Implied Relationships, Just bros being bros, M/M, Not Shimadacest, References to Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 12:11:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7639699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Farstrider/pseuds/Farstrider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hanzo remembers all the various names Genji called him from the first day they met to now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What my Brother calls me

**Author's Note:**

> A short from my tumblr about the past lives of the Shimada Brothers. You can find my tumblr at ThreeHanzoMoon.Tumblr.com

“Haaaaaa” was the first thing Genji ever called him. Just an infant reaching up from their mother’s arms letting out the sharp noise before giggling. Little arms reaching out for his older brother and tiny fingers full of strength grabbing onto his hair. Their mother giggled, it made his heart feel light. Genji had her laugh, her warm eyes that knew nothing but love in that moment. “I’ll protect you little brother,” he promised before his hair got pulled hard.

—–

“Ha-nii…Ha-nii!” Genji pulled at the sleeve of his dark robe as they knelt on the pavilion that was built for them. All around were family and friends, so distant you needed a map to find them all. Shimada soldiers stood in smart suits, straight backed all around them. Hanzo’s father knelt before the big pyre that was being blessed. “Ha-nii we have to wake mama up!” Hanzo has no idea how to tell the toddler they couldn’t do that. He just holds his brother’s hand. “Okasan is going to go with the Dragons now, Genji. Up to heaven.”

“But… no! No she can’t! They can’t eat her!” Genji lunged and Hanzo caught him, pulling him tight as the child wailed loud enough to break the silence of courtyard. “OKASAN! MAMA!!!” Their father’s gaze snapped harshly to them and Hanzo gathered Genji in his arms, turning his head away so he screamed against his robes and throat.

“Shh… Genji it’s ok. She’ll be safe. She’ll be fine. I’ll look after you now. I’ll miss her too but she wouldn’t want you to be sad.” Hanzo tried to sooth. This was out of his depth but his heart was in it. The roar of flames made both flinch as their father summoned his dragon. The great red and black beast that devoured the pyre, the heat of it’s flamed so hot it seemed to sear Hanzo as he watched. He huddled around Genji, still wailing for their mother. “I will protect you, Genji.” he swore as he held back his own tears.

——

“Hanzo-nii” the gentle voice cuts through the fog and a cool hand traveled across his brow. His eyes fluttered open and he didn’t remember closing them. “Hey big brother.” Genji smiles wide for him as he kneels beside his bed. “Sorry to wake you up but you had me worried.”

“Genji? Wh…why am I in your room?” He can barely recall the last few hours let alone why he’s in his brother’s room. The posters on the wall, the lights and scarves across the beams above the bed. It’s light and airy and messy compared to his own room. Full of shiny things and bright colors. A sparrow’s nest. As he attempted to sit up pain burned along his joints, through his gut and chest, making his breath wheeze sickly.

“No, no, you just… just stay put ok. You’ve been out for a few hours.” Genji’s hands are gentle as they push him back into the futon. They don’t have to be strong since Hanzo can’t summon any of his strength. The dragons, freshly inked into his skin, are quiet. No not just quiet but cowed, shown their place.

//I am still Lord of this house and I will remind you why!//

“What happened?” Hanzo asked and Genji winced before dragging a cool cloth over his feverish skin. “Genji…”

“You and Father had an argument. About me.” Genji explained as he helped Hanzo sit up, stuffing pillows behind him so he could lean into them. He reached over to grab a mug of tea from the bedside, held it for Hanzo when it was clear his brother’s hands couldn’t bare the weight. “He left you out in the storm.” The tea is watered down. It tastes horrible. He can make out the flavors of some of the traditional medicine they had to take when the Dragons first awoke in their skin. “He unleashed Tatakai on you.”

Their father’s Red dragon - War - had left it’s marks on his bones and muscles rather than his skin. Just the name of it made the two storm dragons in his skin recoil and burrow further. It was his Father’s fury, a fire that burned all it touched. Even his Father sometimes. It consumed their mother, flayed and scourged their foes and it had been turned on him.

“Hanzo-nii why?” Genji asked after the tea was drained and Hanzo’s eyes fluttered, too heavy to hold open.

//Genji deserves a life of his own if he wishes it! There is no need to drag him into the same things you demand of me. I go willingly but leave Genji the option to choose!//

“I promised to protect you.”

———

“Anii-ja!” The room is full of laughter, women barely dressed, loud music and the scent of booze. Genji had his headband over his eyes, wandering the room promising to kiss the first pretty woman he could find.

Both his hands were on Hanzo’s chest, squeezing before he said his name in surprise.

“Out. All of you.” Hanzo ordered, ignoring their pouts and cries of dismay. Genji’s the loudest.

“Anii-ja there’s plenty to go around! Come on join the fun!” Genji tugged on his arm “You could use an evening to relax!”

“This is not behavior fit for the Shimada heirs.” He watches the women get the clue and start to gather their cloths and things.

“You’re lord of the house now with Father gone.” Genji reminded him. “Come on it’ll be fun!” Genji moved away “Ladies please just give my brother a drink or two it’ll be fine.”

Hanzo sees it before Genji does, one of the women he grabs to tug back to the fun has something in her hand and he moves. Pain sears his side as the kunai bites home, the other women scream and panic, like a flock of birds.

Genji doesn’t even think twice about it. His own weapon hits her right in the throat, blood spurting across both brothers and their clothing, soaking the tatami. Guards rush in, guns drawn, women cry and scream, Genji’s hand presses to Hanzo’s side.

“Anii-ja!”

Hanzo ignores his concern and pulls the kunai, looking at it’s make and the tiny engraving on the hilt. “Saitori…bag the body and send it back to them. Tell the old pig he will have to do better.” He ignores the blood down his side, the scrape of his ribs that took the brunt of the blade’s pain. He can feel the burn of something but the Dragons coil under his skin to rid him of it. “Genji, you must be more serious. I promise to protect you but you have to be more able to protect yourself.” He snapped and his brother flinches and moves away.

He sounds like their Father.

———-

“Ha…n..zo” it’s all he can hear as he runs through the streets. The broken blooded voice, the half gargled chirp from the dying sparrow. His blood burns Hanzo’s skin, bile rising in his throat and he stops only a moment to throw up violently behind a dumpster.

Fall in or Fall. The elders demanded it of him. It was get him to join the clan, to take his place, or they would strip him of his dragon. Peel the tattoo off his back, rend his soul, leave him battered and broken and banished. It was that or what Hanzo had done.

“I failed!” He sobbed, kneeling on the wet ground as he continued to heave and cry “Genji…” //I failed to protect you… I’m so sorry…//

———

“Brother.” the voice is different, jarringly so even, as Hanzo is awoken by it. They are home but the temple is dark. He can only taste blood and ash in his mouth and longs for water. He feels heavy, sluggish, drugged and full of sand. “Just hang onto me. We’re leaving.”

Delicate yet infinity strong arms lift the fallen archer, his bow on his brother’s back along with his katakana. Dead Talon and Shimada soldiers litter the grounds as Genji carries him out. He can hear chatter over the comms, worried voices, angry voices.

He’d tried to come home to pay respects one last time. To their parents this time not Genji. Talon knew. The Shimada knew. His uncle waited for him and when he returned they struck. Only a Shimada wielding the dragons could rule the clan. His uncle had none. What his uncle wanted, the older man had informed Hanzo, he would take.

He didn’t even know how long they’d been hurting him. Everything hurt. Tears stung his eyes from the pain, from memories layered on one another and being just so out of sorts he couldn’t hold it in.

“My… arm hurts.” He tries to moved his left arm, the inked side, but it throbs and stings with pain. He can barely feel the dragons under his skin, blue light going over ruined and peeled flesh to rebuild what had been there even as they walked to the main gate where Overwatch waited for them. “They tried to…”

“I know. Just try to relax. I have you Brother.” Genji shifts Hanzo in his arms to hold him closer, hide his brother’s bruised and ashen face in his throat. He hears the whimper, adjusts his grip a little and even gets into the transport still holding him, refusing to hand the archer off to the very worried and jittery cowboy. “It is time I protected you.”


End file.
